


Born In Shadows, Wreathed In Stars

by chaosandpandemonium



Series: Jem Tiberia Kirk [1]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Child Abuse, F/M, Female James T. Kirk, My First Work in This Fandom, Please be gentle, Tarsus IV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-04-04 19:57:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4150908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaosandpandemonium/pseuds/chaosandpandemonium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I was born in shadows, in a dying starship adrift in the galaxy.<br/>But I lived.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Born In Shadows, Wreathed In Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys!  
> Sooo....please don't hate me, but I only really got into Star Trek after the movies, and I've read a lot of fanfiction about it, but that's it for my knowledge of canon. If there's anything wrong with it (it doesn't really describe anything in detail, but, you know, just in case!) please don't hesitate to tell me! And this is my very first post on AO3, and my first ST fanfic ever, so please be kind! That being said, I love feedback, especially constructive criticism! :) Thanks, and I hope you enjoy!!

I was born in shadows, in a dying starship adrift in the galaxy.

My mother, broken in her grief for my father, made no effort to stay alive for me. She perished minutes after he did, seconds after my birth, her eyes wide and staring. Oh, she might not have been physically dead - but mark my words, Winona Kirk had wasted away.

The only person left on that starship, aside from me, was a young pilot with extremely minimal first aid training, and absolutely no experience in caring for newborn babies, or dying mothers.

He watched in tears as the woman slipped away, shaking hands trying to rouse her from her death-like slumber. Trying desperately to ignore the fact that everything was falling apart around him, he wiped me down with a towel, swaddled me up in the warmest blanket he could find, and strapped me into the seat beside him.

He then set about trying to fix the ship, working for hours on end with no breaks and hardly any food or sleep. He was exhausted, barely able to operate a communicator, let alone a starship.

But, somehow, he did it. And we survived, the two of us, adrift and alone.

My birth was wreathed in death and grief, the days following lost in pain.

But I lived.

~

I was raised amongst tears, living out of a trailer in my Uncle’s backyard.

Firstly with my mother, blank behind eyes of pain, shuffling backwards and forwards, pulled by the winds of change.

And then she grew tired, too tired to see me everyday, too tired to cope with me - so she left, dragged herself up the cliff her despair tipped her off, and returned to Starfleet. Returned to the stars, to the cold shadows which had ripped everything she could have had away from her.

I hated the stars, yet simultaneously, I loved them with all of my being. I was, after all, made of stardust.

Stardust and sorrow.

And I was alone again, floating in a universe of darkness.

Uncle Frank didn’t count - if anything, he made me more alone. Living with him made me realise that I didn’t get a childhood, I didn’t get an easy way out - I had to work to live, and ultimately, live to work.

Day in, day out, wooden bars and smoky air, the scent of alcohol and vomit clinging to my clothes, lingering, following me wherever I went. I was called a drunk, a slut, a waste of air and space, an ungrateful bitch. I wore long dark clothes to cover large dark bruises, my skin mottled purple and brown.

And then I flew, for the first time and certainly not the last, arms outstretched, chin and chest towards the sky, forever pointed upwards. And everything came crashing down, red paint scratched into the cliff face, the smell of burnt rubber and hot metal, and my voice, loud and steady and sure - the only shake from the memories of flight.

"My name is James Tiberia Kirk."

And I lived.

~

I was forged in hunger, amongst the crumbling ruins of a human colony on an alien planet.

Sent away for the stunt of the cliffs and the sky and the red, red paint, I tasted happiness for the first time in my life. But it was just a brief savour, whetting my lips for the heartbreak to come.

No, those days I fed on sorrow and ash, choking and drowning in the cries of many. My hands reached and soothed and calmed and quietened, my voice croaked and ordered and screamed. I was a whisper in the dark, a demon in the shadows - the ghost of those who had passed.

I slept and worked and ran and hunted beside men, women and children who went on to die in front of me, their blood staining dirt that was already red with other deaths. Sometimes they would crumble, eyes wide in salvation, relief evident in open mouths and reaching hands, their bellies full in their dying dreams.

Ash and fire was more common, more familiar, than people. Voices were a sign to scatter, screams a sign to run. Death was digested for breakfast lunch and dinner, and sometimes we'd have it for supper, too. There were those who couldn't bear it, who painted their wrists with bloody smiles, and those who painted other people, those who turned rabid and mean when the twilight came.

And then. From the stars and from the sky, safety and food flocked. A cry from a desperate mouth, and the crimes forced upon us, the crimes we had endured, all would be paid in due time. My voice, so strong, faltered, silenced by grief so dark I was sister to the night, child to the shadows.

But I lived.

~

I was tempered in booze, wasting away my days in bar after bar after bar.

My fists would ache to hurt, and then they would just ache. I was careless, fearless, reckless. I threw myself about on a whim, limbs curled close to my body, inflicting as much damage on others as I inflicted on myself - and more, oftentimes, than they on me.

I was lean and strong and alive, but it was my living that haunted my nightmares, that weighed my steps with guilt, that rested on my shoulders in sorrow.

For I was alive and they, so much more deserving, whole and good and lovely, they were not. They were gone, and nothing I could do would bring them back.

I loved and hated in equal measure, blurred the lines until there was no return, wasted myself on men and women who could never fix me, could never understand me. Some said my mind burned too bright, others said it was my genes.

But I spent days punching and being punched, and nights under stranger's sheets, in stranger's beds, where everything was quick and hot and primal, where need and pain came hand in hand again. I understood and I could control, and that healed my broken mind more than any man could.

Or so I thought.

And then she of the cocoa skin, and he of the star-bright eyes, they changed my life forever. The night started the same, and when she caught my eye, I knew it could end two ways. One was quickly ruled out, and when my blood roared in my ears, I grinned, my eyes too bright with the pleasure of pain, my thoughts and my memories numbed.

And then he walked in, his whistle piercing my ears, his eyes polished silver - he pushed my to my limit and then further, speaking the words no one else dared to murmur.

And I thought and I drove and I promised and I winked and I sat and I laughed - smooth, southern baritone warnings be damned.

And I lived.

~

I was tested in happiness, buoyed by the friends who brought me back to Earth.

There was Pike, strong and steady, always watching, always waiting, steady in his belief, honest in his praise - and also his warnings.

There was a stream of men and women, each keeping me happy for a while, each boring me just as quickly as the last, starbursts of sex and drinks and dates and long, long nights. Gaila, reoccurring every month or so, to reset me or heal me or wind me - and mostly all at the same time.

Here my mind was unleashed, set free, wandering no longer without guidance, wondering and calculating and thinking and learning and challenging. Here I learnt happiness, and I took big bites of it, chunks larger then I could fit all at once, giddy and bright and floating on air.

And then there was Bones. Salt of the earth and steady as rock, stormy as all hell on his good days, he was my conscience, my voice of reason, and the keeper of my sanity. He was the reason I lived, when I had nothing else to live for.

Not that I'd ever let him know, of course. Everything about me, my past and my present demons, they stayed locked up behind cold walls. The only time those walls fell down was when I slept, and the only person I slept around was Bones. So I didn't have to tell him in words that I loved him, and his frown was the reason I kept laughing - he knew without words, just as I knew that even through his gruff, rumbly exterior, he would be there. Always.

So I lived.

~

I was honed in fire, the deaths of many weighing on me, crushing me.

Everyone had eyes on me, watching, waiting, for that one major fuck-up which would cost everyone everything. And I was watching myself, wandering through erratic thoughts and half-formed theories, trying not to fall into the widening chasm of memories which lurked, ever there, ever growing.

And then I fell, tumbling, tumbling, into darkness, head over heels. My breath was frosted, and everything was blinding, pure white when I woke. I stumbled, onwards, chased by brilliantly red demons that desired my blood, my bones, my heat. I fell again, stumbled up, crawled towards shelter - and there, wielding fire, he was.

And he touched my mind in ways no one else ever will, and he understood me, mind and soul. And he forgave me. He loved me still. He gave me the knowledge and the strength and the dignity to carry this through to the end, the very end if need be, and he sent me off heavy with knowledge, but with less demons than I'd ever had in my memory.

And washed clean, I applied pressure where pressure needed to be applied, watched him crack and shatter before my very eyes, watched him piece himself back together, blank-eyed as my mother. And I grew smaller in their eyes, and then watched, bit by bit, as I built myself back up, until they too would take this to the end.

I succeeded where success was required, watched as the evil that had nearly destroyed me vanished as if by magic - but I knew it wasn't, not in this life ruled by science. And I saved us, all those who remained.

And I lived.

~

I was wreathed in stars, a lost sheep who grew to become the shepherd.

I was honoured, above and beyond what I could hope for in my wildest dreams, although I had promised it. A lifetime previously, it had seemed. I was clothed in gold, living amongst the stars and in the shadows, living in the blankness where I had been born, where my family had been torn from me, my future vanishing into wisps along with them.

But I would not fear, I would not falter. I had a new family, a sweetheart who would never leave me - she was beautiful, beloved by everyone, and I was envied by all.

And Bones was there the whole time, by my side, as always.

And there was this strange new man who spoke blank honesties like it was nothing, even though I knew he felt pain deeper than anyone else I'd ever met; bar me.

And there was the rest of them, blue and red and gold, hearts alight with adventurous fire, eyes that no longer watched with anger or doubt but full, complete faith.

And I no longer just lived; no.

This time I thrived.


End file.
